Penn State got whipped by Michigan 49-10 last season and then won eight straight Big Ten games _ nine if you count the conference title game in Indianapolis. Impossible. Unreal.
And that was not the even the Big Ten's most shocking turnaround last season.
From 2013 to 2015, Michigan State went 36-5. It was a programs of oooohs and ahhhhs.
Mark Dantonio not only won big, but also did it with recruits whom college football royalty had snubbed.
"We were the epitome of what you wanted to be in college football," Dantonio said Monday at Big Ten media days. "No problems, championships, graduating our players."
And then the model program broke. Michigan State football was unrecognizable for much of 2016, giving up 54 points to Northwestern at home, losing to Illinois, getting drubbed in the season finale at Penn State. No heart.
The Spartans finished 3-9. And that might have been the lightest stain on their jerseys.
The darker ones, the ugliest ones, cut to the core of everything in which Dantonio believes.
At least 11 scholarship players from last year's team with remaining eligibility are no longer on the roster. Some left for unknown reasons. Linebacker Jon Reschke transferred after making what he called an "insensitive and totally regrettable comment" to a teammate.
The most serious departures included former Hinsdale South star Josh King, a defensive end charged in June with criminal sexual conduct after a woman said three players sexually assaulted her at a party in January.
Standout receiver Donnie Corley and defensive back Demetric Vance were kicked off the team along with King over that incident. Defensive end Auston Robertson, charged with a separate alleged sexual assault, also was dismissed.
"When you see the result of it on both sides and see the tragedy that unfolds right in front of your eyes," Dantonio said, "there's a message there for everybody."
This is where Dantonio veers from so many of his peers. His profession is loaded with excuse makers, deniers, those who blame rivals or haters after their players go astray.
Dantonio seems genuinely horrified by how his program crumbled. He's determined to rebuild.
"Get back to our morals and what our program is, what we stand for," said Michigan State offensive lineman Brian Allen, a Hinsdale Central alumnus. "That has been his message."
Said Dantonio: "Eleven years ago I was hired here to reform a culture. Our mission was to win championships, graduate players and do things right. We'll re-establish ourselves in all three of those areas.
"We've had some good times. It's easy to stand up there and sing the fight song and put a (championship) hat on. It's not as easy when you are going through these type of things, but at the end of the day, that's why I was hired _ to solve problems. That's what we're going to do."
He will need his players' help to repair a battered locker room.
Asked if there was a racial divide last season, running back Gerald Holmes replied: "I don't want to speak too much on that, but whatever it was, I definitely do not see that now. My thing is, as long as people are ready to come work, if you're running sprints next to me and you're sweating with me and winning games with me, that's all that matters."
Holmes helped create a series of player-only meetings "where we discuss our problems and allow the floor to be open to anybody _ a younger guy, a white guy, a black guy. We do them about every week. And I plan on having them set in stone even when I'm gone."
Holmes is one of only nine scholarship seniors on the roster. Allen is another. Asked what the program stands for, he replied: "A tough, workmanlike mentality. Coming in with a chip on your shoulder. It's not about being pretty or being cool.
"We're not even talking about winning games right now. It's winning a workout, having the right attitude. For whatever reason, that wasn't there last year."
Said Dantonio: "Our seniors have to have their best year. And then our other players have to grow. We just have to, inch by inch, take it back."
